Benefits: Discover 5 aspects of your personal growth that you simply can’t attain alone.
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5 Reasons Your Personal Growth Can't Be All About You
I don’t care how introverted you are, you can’t reach your personal growth goals alone. Partly because you are going to need help (everyone does!) and partly because some of your needs can only be met through building relationships with other people.
In my last post, “5 Superpowers You Gain by Spending Time Alone”, we learned that you have to spend time alone in order to meet your personal growth goals. True enough, but, as the title says, your personal growth can’t be all about you. You have to focus some of your personal growth efforts on building relationships — together time.
You might be shaking your head right now and thinking, “Seriously, Amanda! I was just getting used to the idea of developing my superpowers by spending time alone, and now you’re telling me to do just the opposite? Ay Ay Ay!!!”
No, I’m not. I’m saying that you have to find a balance. Finding your ideal balance is going to require some trial and error, but here’s a clue to help you know where to start. If you’re an introvert, you replenish your energy by spending time alone, so your scales will be tipped more toward alone time. And, of course, the opposite is true for extroverts.
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What Are These Needs That You Speak Of?
If you’re familiar with my work, you may know that I’m kind of an Abraham Maslow fangirl (if there were such a thing). The mission and philosophy of The Expectation Gaps was influenced by his work, and I’ve written many posts that use his Hierarchy of Needs as a jumping off point. (This is going to be another one ?.) That’s why the needs that I’m speaking of are those outlined by Maslow, as depicted below.
You will probably need some help from other people to meet your most basic needs — physiological and safety. But, meeting your Love and Belonging needs will most definitely require some together time.
In fact, I believe that our inability to meet our Love and Belonging needs is what keeps us from realizing our full potential (self-actualization) — we remain stuck in the Expectation Gap. Which is why it is so important to focus some of our personal growth efforts on together time.
The 5 Reasons You Need Together Time
Before I list the reasons, it’s important to note that your together time shouldn’t be spent with just anyone. You want to be sure you’re spending it with your green flag people (click here if you’re not sure what this means).
While you’re with these green flag people, you’ll be able to focus on 5 aspects of your personal growth that simply can’t be attained alone. During your together time you can:
- Practice setting manageable expectations.
- Learn from someone else’s experiences.
- Practice empathy.
- Serve others.
- Fulfill your Love/Belonging need.
For fun (yes, fun ?), let’s examine each aspect in relation to the components of The Cycle of Deliberate Thinking. Why? Because I believe embracing The Cycle can lead us to the fulfilling life we were meant to live, and I want to offer as much proof as I can to support this philosophy.
Aspect #1 - Practice Setting Manageable Expectations
Component = Examine Expectations
We make a lot of decisions based on other people’s expectations; based on their priorities and timelines rather than our own. Some of these are real expectations that are communicated to us, but some are expectations that we create in our own minds. So, the first step toward setting manageable expectations is to examine the expectation and determine if it is someone else’s, your own, or one that you made up. That will give you a clue as to how to manage the expectation.
Then, during your together time, you can practice setting manageable expectations. Let’s walk through a simple example to illustrate how this might play out.
Your significant other says, “Will you please do the dishes?” It’s pretty obvious that his/her expectation is you will do the dishes. However, your expectation is that you’re going to chill out after your busy day.
You could create an expectation in your head. Something like, “Significant Other expects me to do the dishes right now?!?! Doesn’t he/she know how busy I’ve been today? Why can’t he/she do them? Why does he/she always expect me to do everything around here?” These are all self-inflicted expectations, and if you voice them, you will surely end up in a fight. Instead . . .
You can manage these competing expectations by asking questions and setting new expectations based on a negotiation of sorts.
You could say, “I’d be glad to do the dishes after I chill out for an hour.” Or, “I’m super tired. Would you mind doing them tonight? And I’ll get them tomorrow.” Now, you can’t control how the other person reacts, but you’ve set a manageable expectation — you will do the dishes either in an hour or tomorrow.
Yes, this is a fairly easy situation to navigate, but you can apply the same principles to almost any situation.
Aspect #2 - Learn From Someone Else’s Experiences
Component = Stay Curious!
I don’t think this one is going to take a lot of explanation ?.
The best way to learn anything is by doing it. The second best way is by listening to the personal stories of someone who has already done whatever it is you want to do. Not only do you get to learn what they did right, you also get to find out what they did wrong so you don’t have to make the same mistakes.
It goes without saying that learning from someone else’s experiences is going to require together time. Face-to-face together time is great, but watching videos or reading about someone’s experience can also suffice as together time. You’re still looking outside yourself to spur your personal growth.
Aspect #3 - Practice Empathy
Component = Respect Other Points of View
According to F. Diane Barth L.C.S.W of Psychology Today:
Empathy is the ability to understand and share the feelings of another.
and —
Our neural networks are set up to interact with the neural networks of others in order to both perceive and understand their emotions and to differentiate them from our own, which makes it possible for humans to live with one another without constantly fighting or feeling taken over by someone else.
The ability to live without “constantly fighting or feeling taken over by someone else” is an important aspect of your personal growth because it will help you meet your Love/Belonging Need that we discussed earlier.
I don’t want to hear, “But I’m not an empathetic person. I just wasn’t born that way.” Yes, some people are naturally more empathetic than others, but research has shown that empathy is a skill that can be learned with practice. I’m not saying that it’s an easy skill to acquire, but it can be acquired.
The more you practice empathy, the more likely you will be to respect other points of view and vice versa. You really can’t do one without the other. And the encouraging thing — both skills grow exponentially the more they are practiced.
Aspect #4 - Serve Others
Component = Personify Core Values
This one may seem like a bit of a stretch because not all core values involve serving others, but there is a link to be found here. When you personify your core values, you are more confident because you are living authentically. This confidence creates a sense of well-being that makes you want to serve others.
Serving others is an important aspect of your personal growth because it acts as a reminder that we are all suffering in some way, we all have problems, and we all need help once in awhile. These reminders will help you stay the course when the road toward your personal growth gets rocky, as it always does.
Aspect #5 - Fulfill Your Love/Belonging Need
Component = Execute With Intention
As we discussed, our inability to meet our Love and Belonging needs keeps us from realizing our full potential (self-actualization). And, the reason our Love/Belonging needs are difficult to meet is that they involve other people; we simply can’t meet these needs on our own.
Therefore, in order to meet our Love/Belonging needs, we have to be intentional in our relationships (I have a separate post covering relationships here). We have to decide that we want to build stronger relationships, with people who are best for us, and then we have to take action — execute with intention.
The goal is to build:
- Family ties, friendships, and intimacy.
- Trust and the capacity to receive and give affection.
- Acceptance and the feeling of being part of a group.
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Links
The Importance of Empathy, posted to YouTube by Lifehacker on 2.03.17
Can Empathy Be Taught?, F. Diane Barth L.C.S.W., Psychology Today, 10.18.18
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